


Deep Water

by Fishpaste



Category: Kuroshitsuji | Black Butler
Genre: Blood, F/M, Missing Scene, dead bodies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-19
Updated: 2019-05-19
Packaged: 2020-03-08 04:49:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,133
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18887512
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fishpaste/pseuds/Fishpaste
Summary: The Campania has sunk, the Bizarre Dolls are dead and the surviving humans have left. Unfortunately there are still souls waiting to be collected and Will is not in the mood to listen to any of Ron and Grell's excuses about why they haven't finished the job.





	Deep Water

“Could you at least let me back onto the boat?” Grell whined, the water was cold and tasted awful and she’d spent far more time in it than she cared for at this point; although at least it wasn’t full of those damnable walking corpses anymore. She reached up to grab hold of the side of the lifeboat, feeling the wound across her chest tug painfully as she did so. Will had turned his icy gaze from watching the departing ship to glaring back at her and she couldn’t help but sigh happily, he really had no idea just how incredible he looked like that, lit from within with cold fire, all ice and elegance and dark merciless beauty.

“There’s really very little point getting back in the boat Sutcliff.” He frowned at her. “There are still two hundred and six souls left to collect and record, and the fact that they are now residing at the bottom of the ocean is no excuse to neglect our jobs.”

She stared up at him in open dismay, yes of course she was capable of going down there and reaping the bodies, it wasn’t as though she really needed to breathe, and the pressure couldn’t kill a Reaper either, but she hated those deep sea missions with a passion, they were usually given to a team of specialists anyway, sometimes finding underwater bodies could be next to impossible. If someone had been torn into pieces by a school of sharks, how did you find the part where the soul still resided?

“Will, darling, you can’t possibly mean that…” She said apprehensively. Will’s glare only intensified, oh dear, he was definitely unhappy with her. She didn’t think she’d be able to charm her way back into his good graces for a while yet. “But Ronnie and I-“ she started, wanting to point out the deep slashes crossing both their chests. While a normal wound would easily have been healed by now, injuries from a Death Scythe could take weeks or even months before they closed completely, and now that the adrenaline from the fight with the Undertaker had long since been washed away in the endless sea, she was feeling the exhaustion of the fight and her hurts acutely. Will however, didn’t give her a chance to answer, pushing his glasses more securely up his face and glaring between the two of them.

“I don’t care how tired the pair of you are, if you’d done your job correctly in the first place, I wouldn’t be out here doing overtime and babysitting the two most useless members of dispatch. As it is, we are going to go down, collect the remaining souls before they get swept away or scavenged by animals or demons, and then return to headquarters so you two can report on what exactly went on here that led to this travesty of professionalism.”

“Will, love…” Grell tried again, rather more urgently, he obviously didn’t realise quite what this situation had been, there had been a whole boatful of bizarre dolls, a demon and his master and a renegade Grim Reaper who’d managed to outfight all three of them; it had not been anything like simple negligence that had caused this whole mess. But before she could finish the sentence, Will had stepped neatly over the side of the boat, beginning to swim steadily down to the sea bed far below them. 

“Miss Sutcliff?” She looked up, to see a rather battered Ron looking at her over the side of the boat. “He didn’t _really_ mean it, did he? We don’t have to go and reap another two hundred souls before we can go back home, do we?” There was a hint of real desperation in his voice and Grell winced, sometimes she forgot how young Ron really was, he’d already had a rough enough day as it was, between them they’d already reaped about eight hundred souls, butchered who knew how many walking corpses and got involved in a very intense fight that had left them both wounded and now his supervisor seemed furious with him and he was facing another large reap, this one in some of the most difficult surroundings Reapers worked in before he would have a chance to go home and sleep, or seek medical attention. She sighed.

“It seems so. No matter how handsome he is, Will can be rather a tyrant at times.” She mustered up a grin for her trainee. “But it won’t be too bad, after what we just sorted, this will be easy. And you’ve never done a deep sea reap before have you? It will be a great experience!” She beamed up at him. He tried to smile back, but she could see the worry and exhaustion in his eyes. “Come on, the sooner we get it done with, the sooner we can get back and rest.”

Reluctantly, pale and battered looking, Ron slipped over the side of the boat, shivering again as he splashed down next to her. She reached over and grabbed his hand, letting out any gathered breath in her lungs and beginning the long swim down into the darkness.

*****

Down, down, down, deeper than light, deeper than fish would swim. It was cold, pitch black and the increasing pressure was uncomfortable. Grell swam steadily downwards, cursing Will in every language that she knew, and a few she invented just to be able to swear at him a bit more in the privacy of her head. A glance to her side showed her Ron following after her dutifully, and she slowed slightly to keep pace with him.

As they approached the sea floor she began to make out the hulking shape of the Campania. The ruined ship lay in two halves, still creaking and groaning as it settled into its final resting place. No human would be able to see at this depth, but Reapers were, despite their appearances and occasional behaviour, divine beings and therefore they had a few extra advantages. Their unique green eyes may have been weak but they functioned effortlessly in the darkness, allowing all three Reapers to see as clear as daylight. Grell could see the souls still waiting to be collected, far too many of them and she sighed, releasing a bubble of air that began floating up towards the surface. Will was hovering, waiting for them above the deck and she swam towards him; he still looked dreadfully unhappy and the water had loosed his hair from his usual strictly maintained style, making it wave gently around his head. Normally that would have been cause to laugh, but not when he was still glaring at her and she didn’t want to get him more annoyed at her than he was already.

He pointed, while Reapers might not need to breathe underwater, without air it was very difficult to speak, gesturing for Ron to take the stern of the ship, Grell to come down in the middle and indicated he would take the bow, then promptly turned and swam off to his designated place. Grell stuck her tongue out at his back. Yes, she knew he was having to do god only knew how much overtime to get this sorted, but did he really have to be quite so _affronted_ by it? She and Ron were doing the overtime too, weren’t they? Ron was already swimming slowly to his assigned place and Grell began grumpily descending towards the ship, hopefully it wouldn’t be too complicated a job now there were no more distractions from simple reaping.

It was eerie in the ship itself. Everything was still now, no more frantic screaming or fighting or attempts to escape, no more rocking of waves or sounds of the alarms. The lights were all off and the corridors and rooms filled with icy cold water. Anything loose in the ship was floating around aimlessly, blankets twisted in the middle of rooms, jewellery hung in the air as though gravity had been turned off and the numerous bodies were everywhere. The cold would preserve them for a little, but eventually the fish would find their way in here or the water would begin slowly breaking them down. Colour was muted, and the water made all movements slow, Grell felt she was in some sort of elaborate dream, inching her way through a ship full of the dead, watching the bizarre sights around her as the ocean began greedily claiming the work of man. The first soul was up ahead and she pulled out her scythe. It roared, even underwater, the sound the first one she’d really heard in what felt like forever, reminding her that though she was surrounded by the dead, and though she was technically dead herself, she was still present and moving, she wasn’t gone yet! She drove the chainsaw into the first body and began watching the reels play.

The actions were almost mechanical after that, walk to the body, release the cinematic record, watch it fully, record the death and move on to the next one. It was hard, working alone in such a silent alien environment while hurting and exhausted anyway, but Grell let her mind sink into a stupor, just focus on getting to the next body, the next room, the next passageway…gradually she worked her way down the ship, watching the lives of rich successful businessmen, third class passengers hoping for a new life, sailors who had spent their whole lives on various boats, children who were travelling on the sea for the first time, elderly people with long rich lives behind them, young teenagers full of hopes and dreams for the future…she let it all blow past her, she’d seen these same stories played out so often, the tragedy of death was that it wasn’t really a tragedy for her any more. People died, they lived, and it was hard to care about after you’d been watching their lives for centuries.

She wandered on through the ship. There were fewer bodies now, most passengers had been trying to get higher up and she and Ron had already gone through most of the lower decks earlier. She squinted around, but as far as she could tell, there were no souls remaining nearby her. Wondering how late it was, she set off towards where Ron should still be working, if she was finished she may as well give him a hand, get the work done sooner. Besides, if Will caught her doing nothing his fury might reach unimaginable levels, and he was already cross enough with her anyway.

Walking through water was a pain, but eventually she made her way to where Ron should be. There seemed to be a lot of uncollected souls scattered about though, and she couldn’t hear the roar of his scythe either. Slightly worried she rounded the last corner and found him sitting slumped over on the floor, scythe beside him and eyes shut, fast asleep. Her expression softened, he looked so tired…the floor really couldn’t be that comfortable to sleep on…she should wake him up to finish the job….But he seemed so young and small there, half propped up against the wall, fingers still curled around the handle of his scythe. He must have dropped in the middle of working, overwhelmed by the day’s efforts.

Grell crouched down next to him, pushing his fringe out of his eyes so she could see his face. He didn’t even stir at her touch. Shaking her head, she tugged off her crimson coat, draping it over him, it probably wouldn’t give that much extra warmth, considering where they were, but it would hardly hurt either. She turned to the bodies still surrounding them, eyes narrowed in determination, time to hurry this up.

*****

Will straightened up from the final body in his area. There, all souls collected, none too damaged to move on, none attacked by a demon or any other supernatural creature. There were a lot of odd bodies around though, the level of decomposition seemed to indicate that they’d been dead for much longer than might have been expected. Curious. The passenger’s reels indicated they had actually been moving, attacking people.

Enough time had passed, Grell and Knox must be nearly finished with their sections by now, unless they were slacking off again. They had better not be slacking off again, he thought grimly as he set off to find them. It really was too much, the Dispatch division already had enough to be going on with at the moment, what with the reports of moving corpses and the chronic understaffing levels, he didn’t have time to be chasing up on subordinates who should know better than to give up mid way through a reap. He’d known it was a big reap to give them, in ideal circumstances there would be five or six Reapers assigned to this many souls, but just because they were overworked was no reason to neglect their work and expect everyone else to pick up what they’d abandoned. Everyone was working extra shifts right now, and Will was doing his best to get some new Reapers trained up to help out, but it was slow going.

Looking around as he moved through the ship, he was pleased to see that all the souls seemed to have been collected. Maybe he would be able to get this overtime finished soon enough after all. There were still a lot of the strangely over decomposed bodies scattered around, many looking like they’d been attacked, crushed heads, torso’s ripped apart, sword wounds that ran straight through the brain…he was looking forward to the reports that Sutcliff and Knox would submit, there must be an explanation for everything that had happened.

No sign of Sutcliff in the centre of the ship, perhaps she had gone to help Knox? He continued on towards the stern, most of the souls appeared to have been collected, he couldn’t see any ones that had been left he was pleased to note. Then up ahead a flash of red caught his eye and he increased his pace, before coming to a halt next to the sleeping body of Knox, curled up under Grell’s obnoxious red coat, head resting on his pillowed arms. _Honestly…_

He reached down to shake the younger Reaper awake, annoyed. Was it too much to ask, for people to do their job? Really, a hard shift was no excuse for sleeping on the job, but before he could take Knox’s shoulder and wake him, a black gloved hand closed around his arm, stopping the movement. He shrugged Grell’s arm off him, irritated. He was already frustrated enough with her lax attitude to her job as it was, she didn’t need to be making things worse for herself.

She didn’t look how he expected her to though, usually when she was in trouble for slacking off on the job she’d be batting her eyelashes at him, trying to charm her way out of trouble, or cheerfully gabbling excuses at a mile a minute but now she just looked tired and almost…angry? It was the first time he’d really taken an opportunity to look at her properly since he’d first come down to clean up this mess. She was pale, and holding herself more stiffly than usual. A pang of concern hit him, there was something going on here he hadn’t noticed in his frustration over having to do extra overtime. Stupid, he should know better than to make assumptions. He stepped back from Knox and Grell released him, looking relieved. Pushing his glasses a bit further up his nose he turned to her, pointing at her scythe and then the closest body, silently asking if the souls had been collected. She rolled her eyes and nodded. Good, if all the souls had been collected then they could go back to the Reaper realm and he could get an explanation about what had happened here. He bent to shake Knox awake again, he could hardly sleep here, but the younger man barely moved, unresponsive to the pressure on his shoulder.

Concerned, Will shook him again, more forcefully this time but all the response he got was a weak hand raised to weakly push at him, no sign of Knox opening his eyes and no hint that he was even aware of what was going on. Will glanced up at Grell, silently asking if she knew what was wrong and she crouched next to him, pushing Knox’s jacket aside to reveal the deep gash across his chest. Eyebrows drawing together in worry, Will noted that the wound hadn’t healed at all, after this long it should have at least been showing some sign of improvement, but it was still leaking blood. Grell tapped his shoulder to get his attention and pointed to his death scythe and Will felt his stomach plummet as the implications hit him. His eyes flicked down to the blood covering her own chest and she gave him a bitter grin and nodded. The wounds had been caused by a death scythe, they had been attacked by another Reaper.

Guilt flooded him once again as he fully realised that both of the Reapers under his command had been in a fight, and both been injured, badly. Impatient or not he should have checked for injuries first, should have given them the chance to explain what had happened…but he’d been so determined to get the remaining souls collected and reduce the amount of overtime he was doing as much as possible that he hadn’t wanted to wait and gather information.

Meeting Grell’s eyes, those same carefully painted and made up eyes that he saw every morning, now faintly creased in pain and holding a look of quiet reproach, was hard. Will knew the guilt and shame must be visible in his expression, and after a moment her expression softened. She had always been far too forgiving of him, he reflected as he reached out, touching her cheek in the best apology he could manage without words. He turned and lifted Knox up, holding the unconscious young Reaper easily and preparing to jump back. He glanced at Grell, raising an eyebrow, unsure if she would be able to jump back and she nodded at him, indicating she would follow straight after. He jumped, glad to leave behind the eerie ship full of corpses. It belonged to the deep ocean now, long may it rest there. Now he had two hurt Reapers to get assistance for, a renegade reaper who must have attacked them, and the continuing mystery of the walking corpses and the hundreds of strange dead bodies he’d seen on the ship.


End file.
